He said it made more sense for Qantas International to withdraw from routes where it faced fierce competition from other carriers including Jetstar.

“What I think they should do, is almost what Virgin’s doing — keep some relatively short sector international flying, some of the US routes that are protected and more or less outsource the other routes,” Mr Webber said.

“That’s probably the future of Qantas.”

Aviation consultant Bill Meeke said the iconic carrier had been “painted into a corner” whereby it had to get out of its high-cost, legacy airline activities and transfer them to the low-cost options of QantasLink, Jetstar domestic and Jetstar international.

“The problem is the unions will frustrate any and all efforts to get things restructured on to a low cost footing,” said Mr Meeke.

Bulking up Jetstar operations at the expense of Qantas International would save on employee costs. Picture: Nikki ShortSource: News Corp Australia

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas said Qantas was deliberately running down its international arm to prop up Jetstar.

“We see first hand the bills for maintenance carried out on Jetstar aircraft going onto the Qantas International books,” said Mr Purvinas.

“The international business has very healthy loads on the flights but customers are being lost across the group because people would prefer to fly Qantas instead of Jetstar.”

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development and Infrastructure Warren Truss said he was confident Qantas was “dealing with its financial situation”.

“I have no expectation that the (financial) announcements next week are likely to be so grave they would require any sort of government intervention,” said Mr Truss.

“Qantas knows they need to operate profitably. Other airlines are expected to do that and stand on their own two feet.”